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State and Revolution in Finland

Risto Alapuro - 978-90-04-38617-4Downloaded from Brill.com02/25/2020 03:00:57PM

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State and Revolutionin Finland

By

Risto Alapuro

LEIDEN | BOSTON



First edition of State and Revolution in Finlandwas published in 1988 by University of California Press.

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Contents

Acknowledgements xiMaps, Tables and Figures xiii

1 The Formation of a Small Polity 11 The Problem 12 A Comparative Perspective 23 What Is to Be Explained 114 Plan of the Book 13

Part 1State-Making and the Class Structure

2 Dominant Groups and State-Making 191 The Early Nineteenth Century 192 Economic Integration 283 The Late Nineteenth Century 34

3 The Agrarian Class Structure and IndustrialWorkers 381 The Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions in Finland 382 Freeholding Peasants and AgrarianWorkers 403 The Link between Industrial and AgrarianWorkers 454 Crofters 46

4 Territorial Integration 491 Finnish Regions up to 1809 492 Reorientation from Stockholm to St. Petersburg 563 Territorial Integration in the Late Nineteenth Century 584 Core-Periphery Interaction – the County of Viipuri and Eastern

Finland 635 South-Western Finland as a Core Region 666 Declining Ostrobothnia 707 Division of Labour and State Penetration in Northern Finland 738 Summary 74



viii contents

Part 2National Integration and Class Integration

5 Finnish Nationalism 791 The Dual Nature of Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century

Europe 792 Finland in a European Perspective 833 The Consolidation of a National Culture 854 Conclusion 91

6 Before the Revolution: Organisation, Mobilisation, and the Role ofRussia 941 Early Mass Organisation 942 The Finno-Russian Conflict 1033 The General Strike of 1905, Parliamentary Reform, and the Rise of

Agrarian Socialism 106

7 Regional Consolidation of Party Support 1181 Regions as Loci of Party Systems 1182 The South-Western Core Region 1203 The County of Viipuri 1224 Ostrobothnia 1225 Eastern Finland 1246 Northern Finland 1257 Conclusions 126

Part 3The Abortive Revolution

8 On Preconditions for Revolutionary Situations 131

9 The Abortive Revolution of 1917–1918 1371 Socialists within the Polity 1372 The Rise of Multiple Sovereignty 1463 The Revolutionary Situation 1524 The Aftermath 1605 The Social and Regional Basis for the Revolution 1626 On the Character of the Finnish Revolution 1687 Breakdown of Society or Contest for State Power? 172



contents ix

10 State and Nation after the Failed Revolution 1791 The Failed Revolution and the Nation 1792 The Persistence of the Volcanic Model of the Finnish

Revolution 1833 On the State, the Nation, and Class Balance 1854 The Lapua Movement, 1930–2 1895 The Mass Movement and the Dominant Classes in Finnish

Fascism 194

Part 4The Finnish State and Revolution in a European Perspective

11 Eastern European Revolutionary Movements 2011 National Movements in the Baltic Provinces 2022 Revolution in the Baltic Provinces, 1905 and 1917–18 2103 Challenges in East-Central Europe 2214 Fascism in Eastern Europe 231

12 The Formation of Finland in Europe 2361 Economic Consolidation 2362 The Formation of State and Nation 2393 Political Organisation and Mobilisation before 1917 2414 Revolutionary Situations in Small European Polities 2445 State and Revolution in Finland 246

Postscript to the Second Printing 2501 A Personal Note 2502 A Recapitulation 2523 The Reception of the Comparative Perspective 2544 Structures and Actors 2605 The Associational Tradition in the Political Process 2646 Causes and Scripts 266

Bibliography 269Index 298



Acknowledgements

The most fundamental debts for the completion of this book are owed to twopersons. Erik Allardt’s emphasis on structural conflicts in social analysis andthe comparative scope of his teaching have provided a basis from which thisproject has grown. No less important have been Erik’s comments and personalsupport during many years, as well as the stimulating setting for research andthe exchange of ideas provided by the Research Group for Comparative Soci-ology at the University of Helsinki.

More specifically, the roots of this book go back to the academic year 1973–4, which I spent in the Center for Research on Social Organization of theUniversity of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Peasants and political conflicts were, inexciting ways, central issues in Charles Tilly’s work. In the intellectual milieusurrounding him it was natural to come to grips with big structures and largeprocesseswithout feeling them to be too huge. Since the inception of this book,years later, Chuck’s continuing encouragement and advice have greatly facilit-ated the progress of the work up to publication.

Many other friends and colleagues have helped me with valuable criti-cism.Matti Alestalo, EdmundDahlström,MaxEngman,MichaelHechter, AnttiKaristo, Pauli Kettunen, Matti Klinge, Klaus Mäkelä, Andreas Moritsch, VeijoNotkola, Gert von Pistohlkors, Seppo Pöntinen, Per Schybergson, Hannu Soik-kanen, Henrik Stenius, Irma Sulkunen, Jukka-Pekka Takala, Hannu Uusitalo,and Matti Viikari have read the manuscript or essential parts of it. Their com-ments and suggestions not only corrected many of my errors but also led to arestructuring of the whole work and to repeated efforts at clarifying my argu-ment. Gavin Bingham and, as copyeditor, Anne Canright, with their care andeffort, greatly contributed to improving the language and the entire presenta-tion. I alsowish to thank Jutta Scherrer for givingme the opportunity to presentthe preliminary, and inmany ways obscure, idea of the character of the revolu-tionary process in Finland in her seminar at the École des Hautes Études enSciences Sociales in Paris in 1981.

I completed the major part of this study while a research fellow of theAcademy of Finland. I am grateful also to the Emil Aaltonen Foundation, theFinnish Cultural Foundation, and the Kone Foundation for their financial sup-port.

Parts of some chapters have previously appeared in Mobilization, Center-Periphery Structures and Nation-Building, edited by Per Torsvik and publishedby Universitetsforlaget in 1981 (Chapter 3); The Politics of Territorial Identity:Studies in European Regionalism, edited by Stein Rokkan and Derek W. Urwin



xii acknowledgements

and published by Sage in 1982 (Chapters 4, 5, and 7); Who Were the Fascists:Social Roots of European Fascism, edited by Stein Ugelvik Larsen, Bernt Hagtvetand Jan Petter Myklebust and published by Universitetsforlaget in 1980 (Chap-ter 10); andTheBreakdownof Democratic Regimes: Europe, edited by Juan J. Linzand Alfred Stepan and published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 1978(Chapter 10). The latter article was written with Erik Allardt; I have drawn herefrom the section I originally preparedmyself. All thematerials utilised here arereproduced with the permission of the publishers. Maps 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9 arereprinted, with permission, from Engman 1978, Jutikkala 1959, Lento 1951, andKero 1974.



Maps, Tables and Figures

Maps

1 Finland, the Baltic Provinces of Russia, and Scandinavia in the nineteenthcentury (including the border between Sweden and Russia in 1721 and 1743) 21

2 Main Finnish regions and the line between the Reds and theWhites in therevolution of 1918 52

3 The counties of Finland at the beginning of the twentieth century 534 Regional distribution of passport-holding Finns living in Russia in 1881, by

domicile in Finland 575 The Finnish railway network by 1918, with the Saimaa Canal 606 Urban industrial workers, 1884–1885 and 1938 617 Rural industrial workers, 1884–1885 and 1938 628 Net internal migration to 1920, by county of birth 699 Overseas emigration from Finland, 1870–1914, by commune 7110 The Baltic Provinces (Estland, Livland, Kurland) and the border between

Estonia and Latvia after 1917 204

Tables

1 Percentage distribution of Finnish population by industry, 1820–1920 262 Percentage distribution of Finnish population by estate, 1890 363 Indicators of market penetration in the countryside, 1870–1910 424 Agrarian households in Finland by class, 1815–1901 435 Production of sawn goods by county, 1860 and 1900 646 Population and migration in Finland by county, late nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries 657 Finnish regions in terms of core-periphery position and class relations 758 Distribution of seats in Parliament won in Finnish general elections, 1907, 1916,

and 1917 1089 Rural and urban party support in Finnish general elections, 1907, 1916, and

1917 10910 Regional variations in political mobilization in the Finnish countryside,

1907–1932 12011 Distribution of seats in Parliament won in selected Finnish general elections,

1919–1933 187



xiv maps, tables and figures

Figure

1 Finnish cities, 1815 and 1920, ranked by population 67



© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004386174_002

chapter 1

The Formation of a Small Polity

1 The Problem

More than two decades ago BarringtonMoore, in his Social Origins of Dictator-ship and Democracy, examined the paths different states have followed whenmoving into themodern age and assessed the ensuing variation in political sys-tems. Concentrating on a few big countries where a certain social process had‘worked itself out’,1 he deliberately neglected the small countries:

The fact that the smaller countries depend economically and politicallyon big and powerful ones means that the decisive causes of their polit-ics lie outside their own boundaries. It also means that their politicalproblems are not really comparable to those of larger countries. There-fore a general statement about the historical preconditions of democracyor authoritarianism covering small countries as well as large would verylikely be so broad as to be abstractly platitudinous.2

When inverted,Moore’s observation encapsulates the basic problemexaminedin this book. What are the decisive factors conditioning twentieth-centurypolitics in smaller countries that are economically and politically dependenton big ones? Even though the question was dismissed by Moore, it is worthasking simply because most countries are small, and most people live in polit-ies that are dependent on distant centres of power. In what ways, then, hasdependenceonpowerful states influencedpreconditions, forms, andoutcomesof collective action in small polities? How has it affected the occurrence ofrevolutions, other large-scale conflicts, and the institutionalisation of politicalsystems when these polities enter into an era of mass politics?

In this study answers to these questions will be sought based on the experi-ence of Finland, one of the smaller European polities economically and polit-ically dependent on big centres. It is also one of the countries called ‘successorstates’ between the world wars. The state structures and internal conflicts ofthese polities, which formed a geographically connected area between Russia

1 Moore 1966, p. xii.2 Moore 1966, p. xiii.

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2 chapter 1

and other major European powers, were dramatically affected byWorldWar I,and the countries reached a critical point in their political development at oneand the same moment.

These characteristics set this group of polities apart from other small coun-tries for which this perspective is also relevant, namely the ThirdWorld coun-tries that have won independence from colonial rule in the twentieth century.Although it is true that dependence through capitalist commercialisation andinterstate competition has powerfully shaped state-making and political con-flicts in both classes of polities, only the European cases were dependent onbackward empires, only they were geographically contiguous with the metro-poles themselves, andonly they experienced a simultaneous, sudden, and com-plete collapse of the metropolitan country. John Dunn’s distinction betweenworld war and decolonisation as the twomajor nondomestic processes relatedto the important revolutionary challenges in the twentieth century capturesthe main difference between the European and the other cases.3

The focus here is on Finland, which means that the problems will be dealtwith in the context of a single country. Themain thrust of the bookwill concernthe nature of political and economic dependence and the particular politicalconsequences it had in the Finnish case. At the end of the book a few comparis-ons with other Eastern European polities will be made to show the distinctive-ness of certain Finnish features. Because Finland is an example of awhole classof countries, analysis of the Finnish experience, togetherwith the comparisonswith other countries, should help to put political development in this class ofcountries into perspective. The analysis may throw some light more generallyon the development of politics in the dependent Eastern European countriesand, ultimately, on how the political and economic impact of the big powers isreflected in the internal processes of the smaller countries.

2 A Comparative Perspective

From what perspective should early twentieth-century politics in Finland andother small Eastern European polities be viewed? If the small countries reallyare a case apart, various well-known models of political development cannotbe used, because they are based, explicitly or implicitly, on the experience of

3 Dunn 1977, p. 98. Actually, Dunn speaks of revolutionary success and of big and small coun-tries alike. The outcome in the small polities was presumably much more dependent onoutside forces than in the large ones.



the formation of a small polity 3

the large European national states.4 Moreover, it is by no means obvious thateven the forms of collective action found in small countries are the same asthose in big, established European states. Thus, if the causes of political trans-formation in the small European states are substantially different from thosein the larger ones, then both the ‘phases’ or ‘sequences’ of political develop-ment and the nature of collective action in the two cases may likewise differmarkedly.

During the years since Moore’s work appeared, the problem of comparabil-ity has been approached in at least two new systematic ways. First, it has beenpointed out that even in large states political transformation is dependent onthe capitalist world-economy and on processes involving other states or theinternational state system. In this viewMoore’s distinction is not as unambigu-ous as he assumed it to be. The analysis of the relationship between states andthe international system should not be confined to small polities but shouldbe extended to large ones – as Theda Skocpol has forcefully maintained inher comparison of the French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions.5 ImmanuelWallerstein’s and Perry Anderson’s delineations of the rise of the Europeanworld-economy and the European state system can also be seen in this light.6In both these analyses the emergence of the various individual states dependson their relations to the entire emerging structure: the trajectories of particularstates are conditioned by their different relations to the system as a whole.

This perspective obviously suggests one way in which Finland can be com-pared with other states, even large ones. For example, it would appear usefulto view the Finnish revolution of 1917–18 as the outcome of the interplay ofdomestic and international processes and in this sense similar to the ‘great’revolutions examined in Skocpol’s study. This approach, unlike theories ofpolitical development, does not imply that similarities between large and smallcountries must be found. Rather, it facilitates comparisons that should enableus to determine what was specific to the Finnish experience itself. For Finland,the significance of the international context is obvious; therefore, looking atother European states and their emergence in an international perspectivemayhelp to identify the key features of Finland’s development. This does not neces-sarily mean that ‘general statements’ will be applicable to Finland, but it mayhelp us see how the internal and external factors important throughout Europewere linked together in this particular case.

4 See Tilly 1975c.5 Skocpol 1979. Also Skocpol 1982, pp. 367–73; Østerud 1978b, pp. 176–8.6 Wallerstein 1974–80; P. Anderson 1974.



4 chapter 1

This approach alone, however, is not sufficient. It hardly suggests more thana general course for considering a northeastern latecomer state such as Fin-land. In order to determine what was specifically Finnish as opposed to whatwas common with other countries, notably the other small Eastern Europeanpolities, the emergence of Finland should be viewed more concretely and in alarge perspective.

Perhaps themost ambitious effort in this, second, direction is Stein Rokkan’s‘conceptual map of Europe’.7 In commenting on Barrington Moore’s decisionto concentrate on leading countries, Rokkan argued that the analysis shouldnot be restricted to large and powerful leading polities when examining spe-cific regions such as Europe. ‘On the contrary, the purpose is to account forvariations among all the distinctive polities in the region, and this requiresdirect attention to the possible consequences of such factors as size, eco-nomic resource potential and location in the international power system’.8Thus Rokkan developed schemes that account for variations in the WesternEuropean party systems and in the scope for state-making in Europe.

In his conceptual map of Europe, state-making patterns vary along twomajor axes of development. On the West-East axis indicating the economicresource bases of the state-making centres, Finland is a region where surpluswas extracted from agricultural labour and not, as in the West, from a highlymonetised economy. Together with the Baltic territories, Bohemia, Poland, andHungary, Finland was a ‘landward buffer’ in which both territorial centres andcity networkswereweakly developed. On theNorth-South axismeasuring con-ditions for rapid cultural integration – that is, nation-building – Finland fallsin the same class as Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland. In these north-ern countries, national Protestant churches marked off religious and linguisticareas into which cultural penetration could occur fairly easily. In the South,in contrast, religious ‘supraterritoriality’ created obstacles for cultural integ-ration.9 It is in this perspective – of an alliance between statemakers andlandowners for extracting food andmanpower and of separate cultural identit-ies developing into political entities – that the major characteristics of Finnishstate formation should be viewed.

Clearly, this model relates Finland to other political entities in Europe andprovides a starting point for comparing state-making in Finland with state-making elsewhere in Europe. It helps us to see that the Finnish state-making

7 Allardt 1981b, p. 264.8 Rokkan 1969, p. 60.9 Rokkan 1973, pp. 80–4; Rokkan 1980, pp. 178–183; Tilly 1981, pp. 10–13.




experience resembles that not only in the fringe between Russia and the othermajor European powers but also in Scandinavia. Nonetheless, this approachhas amajor problem: by placing Finland or any other polity in a European con-text, it fails to take into account the way the entities interact. The internationalsystem is seenas the sumtotal of its componentparts rather thanas anenviron-ment affecting, perhaps in contradictory ways, the destinies of single entities.The model is essentially taxonomic; it does not really address Moore’s prob-lem, that is, the special features of internal developments in small polities thatresult from their dependence on big ones. Basically, as Charles Tilly puts it, ittreats national experiences as ‘cases’ that result from different combinations ofcertain central variables.10

Sweden, to take an obvious instance, is not simply a ‘case’ located some-where in the northern reaches of a giant cross-tabulation. The Swedenwhich appears on Rokkan’s conceptual map is a shrunken remainder ofthe expansive power which at one time or another dominated Norway,Finland, Estonia, Livonia, and other important parts of the North. Canwereconstruct the political development of Sweden – or, for that matter, ofNorway, Finland, Estonia and Livonia – without taking that interactiondirectly into account?11

Tilly himself has explicitly suggested that small polities should be viewed asdependent onbig ones. He also proposes a dichotomy exemplified by the abovedistinction between Sweden, on the one hand, and Norway, Finland, Estonia(Estland), and Livonia (Livland), on the other. The distinction represents thefirst two steps in the general movement toward a worldwide state system thatoriginated in Europe.

The first phase was the formation of the first great national states. Thisinvolved commercial andmilitary competition followed by economic penetra-tion into the remainder of Europe and parts of the world outside Europe. Theexpansive processes were facilitated by the absence of important concentra-tions of power immediately outside the areas in which the substantial stateswere forming, as well as by the availability of new territories for expansion,conquest, and extraction of resources. What took place in this period, fromapproximately 1500 to 1700,was the consolidation of a systemof states acknow-ledging, and to some extent guaranteeing, one another’s existence. The Treaty

10 Tilly 1981, 16. Also Allardt 1981b, pp. 269–70.11 Tilly 1981, 16.



6 chapter 1

of Westphalia (1648) played an important part in laying the foundation for theEuropean state system.12 By the end of the period, the substantial powers inEurope included suchnational states as England, France, Brandenburg-Prussia,and Sweden, as well as three empires: the Russian, the Austro-Hungarian, andthe Ottoman.

Whereas the first phase in thedevelopment toward aworldwide state systeminvolved the formation of a few early national states and empires with eth-nically distinct centres, the second phase consisted of the division of most ofEurope into distinct national states through wars, alliances, and a great varietyof other manoeuvres. The earlier phase in state-making seriously constrainedthe second. New states increasingly came into being as a result of wars betweenestablished members of the state system. The Treaty of Westphalia, the Con-gress of Vienna (1815), and the Treaty of Versailles (1919) constitute dramaticdemonstrations of this point.13 And Finland is a good example of such a newstate: the two major landmarks in its movement toward statehood were theNapoleonicWars andWorldWar I.

This pattern of the emergence of a system of a few early states followed bythe regrouping of the remainder of Europe into a system of states subject tothe constraints of the initial system (which by nomeans remained immutable)helps to place the Finnish and other Eastern European experience in perspect-ive. It is the final phase of the process that concerns us here, however. In thisphase, it is most important that the three great multinational empires, Russia,Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire, were dismembered. Each of themcreated somewhat different preconditions for the consolidation of nationalminorities.14 The so-called successor states of the empires in the late 1800s andearly 1900s include Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia,Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Albania. Many of these countrieswere ‘unhistoric nations’, in the sense that they were not linked to existing oreven historically remembered polities. This was the last wave of creation ofdistinct national states in Europe, and it came about as a consequence of inter-national crisis and/or conflict between the established members.

The distinction implies that state-making processes in the latecomer stateswere different from those in the early substantive states. In the early cases, theonly political units that could survivewere ones privilegedwith a relatively pro-tected position in time and space, the availability of extractable resources, a

12 Tilly 1975b, pp. 30, 44–5; Tilly 1975c, pp. 636–7. See also Kiernan 1965, pp. 32–6.13 Tilly 1975b, pp. 46, 74–5; Tilly 1975c, pp. 636–7.14 The Poles, of course, were divided among various empires, as were the Romanians to a

certain extent.




continuous supply of political entrepreneurs, success inwar, homogeneity (ini-tial or created) of the subject population, and strong coalitions between thecentral power and major segments of the landed elite.15 The transformation ofthese states was largely a by-product of attempts by the central power to con-solidate its position and to respond to challenges both external and internal.The state-making process, then, was intimately bound up with the conduct ofwar, the building of armies, the levying and regularisation of taxes, and thegrowth of the administrative apparatus. Tilly conceives of early state-makingas a process in which the state-makers who were trying to survive and expandwere forced to create standing armies for use against rivals elsewhere as wellas rebels at home: ‘States have grown up as warmaking organizations’.16 Themaintenance of armies made it necessary to squeeze more revenue from thepopulace, and the very existence of the army in turn facilitated this process,thereby contributing to the consolidation of central power. At the same time,various coalitions were formed between the central power and themajor dom-inant classes.

In short, the main processes that brought the national state to a dominantpositionwere not only coercive and extractive; theywere also internal. It is truethat the creationof standing armies resulted fromstruggles between states, andtherefore external threats ultimately played an important role. But the relationof the rulers to the ruledwithin the state was decisive. Territorial consolidation,centralisation, differentiation of the instruments of government, and mono-polisation of the means of coercion (that is, the fundamental state-makingprocesses) were all imposed on the subject population by the emerging cent-ral power and its main allies.17 This view is in line with other conceptions ofEuropean state formation. It is congruent with Max Weber’s formulations onbig (European) states. He views them in terms of his conception of the state asan apparatus of domination, which provides a model for analysing, above all,the internal processes of a political unit.18 According to Perry Anderson, to takeanother example, the absolutist states in theWest emerged in response to theinternal decomposition of feudalism. As a new apparatus of feudal dominationagainst the peasantmasses, absolutism succeeded in obtaining thewidespreadcommutation of dues. The same priority of the intra-state power relations wastrue in the East, despite the fact that there absolutism was largely a resultof external pressures. The more advanced societies of the West were able to

15 Tilly 1975b, p. 40.16 Tilly, Tilly and Tilly 1975, pp. 259–63 (quotation from p. 259).17 Tilly 1975b, pp. 42, 71; Tilly 1975c, pp. 632–3.18 Weber 1948, pp. 77–8, 82–3; Collins 1968, p. 48.



8 chapter 1

plunder the more retarded areas of Eastern Europe. To protect themselves, thecountries of the East had to raise armies, and strong armies required strongstates.19

This centuries-long process did not repeat itself in the secondphase of state-making. The later the state-making process, the less adequate the above pro-cesses are for explaining the formation, survival, or growth of the state. Newstates were more or less created by existing ones,20 as a result of crises andrivalries in the international state system, which led to wars and the break-upof empires subject to protracted pressures.

This differencemeant that relations between themajor local classes and thecentral power evolved differently. In other words, the connection between (1)state structures and (2) class relationswas not the same as in the early substant-ive states. In the small dependent polities, class relations were not as institu-tionalised in political structures, which were in any case recent or otherwiseweak. This difference then shaped the nature of local political organisation andcollective action, whichwere reflected both in (3) national integration – that is,cultural homogenisation and nation-building – and in (4) class integration –that is, class-based collective action.

First, the position of the state apparatus vis-à-vis the subject populationwasdissimilar in the established states as contrasted with the latecomers. In theformer the state apparatus had been consolidated over the course of centuriesand had come to correspond to class relations in the core areas. In the latterthis apparatus was often of recent origin or had been imposed by the metro-politan country. Prior to independence, the position of the dominant groupswas usually guaranteed by the metropolitan power, and inherited administrat-ive institutions and state structures did not necessarily correspond to purelylocal power relations.Thepost-WorldWar I Baltic countries constitute an excel-lent example of this situation. The relationship between the dominant groupsand the subject population was much less institutionalised, and the state lessautonomous, than in the early national states.

It is in this context of political structures that the second factor, class rela-tions, should be viewed. In the last century the expansion of theWestern cap-italist market dissolved feudal ties and reshaped agrarian class structures inEastern Europe. Large numbers of emancipated peasants were allottedminus-cule holdings or no land at all, except in the Balkans, where backward smallfarming became predominant. The consolidation of large capitalist estates was

19 P. Anderson 1974, pp. 18, 196–202; Gourevitch 1978, pp. 427–8.20 Tilly 1975c, p. 636.




not immediately accompanied by the growth of an industrial proletariat in thecities. It was common to see class boundaries imposed along ethnic lines: in anumber of minority areas, local peasantries were confronted with non-nativelandlords. The level of literacy was much lower than in the West and Scand-inavia, and popular organisation was weak.21 All in all, large strata of the peas-antry inminority regionswere hurt by economic dependence on the developedWest. Examples of the effect of this class structure on collective action are theextensive peasant unrest in the Baltic Provinces of Russia in 1905 and the greatRomanian peasant revolt in 1907.

Third, ethnic considerations played amuchmore prominent role in the latercases. The formation of the state was given momentum by the aspirations ofethnically distinct groups, or, more precisely, by the actions of their elites. Inthe earlier phase of state-making, national consciousness, participation, andcommitment generally developed only after strong states had been formed, asa consequence of deliberate actions on the part of the central power.22 In theEastern European latecomer states, the process was reversed: ethnic similarit-ies led to the emergence of a national consciousness before the formation ofthe state.23 This difference should be borne in mind when assessing the role ofnationalism in the two cases.

Fourth, in the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, class-based collective action took place in different conditions in the two classes ofcountries. During this period there were increasing demands for the extensionof political rights in Europe, the working-class movement being themain chal-lenger in the old and new states alike. If, following Charles Tilly,24 collectiveaction is conceived of as resulting from changing combinations of interests,organisation, mobilisation, and opportunity, it is particularly the opportunitythat distinguishes the latecomer states from the earlier (Western) Europeannational states. Thedifferencemerits attentionbecause the bulk of the relevantliterature has,more or less implicitly, taken the experience of the earlyWesternEuropean states as their starting point.

The Western experience suggests that collective action was the result of agradual but painful process running from common interests through organ-isation and mobilisation to collective action. This conception pervades thewritings of several analysts of political transformations and revolutions: it is

21 Berend and Ránki 1974, pp. 25–58; Orridge andWilliams 1982, pp. 24, 29, 32.22 Tilly 1975b, p. 70.23 Chlebowczyk 1980, pp. 21–2, 214; Eley 1981, pp. 96–105; Orridge 1982, pp. 44–5.24 Tilly 1978, pp. 7–8.



10 chapter 1

present in BarringtonMoore’s great book; it figures in the Tilly’s analysis of therebellious century extending from 1830 to 1930 in France, Italy, and Germany;and it is a central theme in E.P. Thompson’s book on the making of the Eng-lish working class.25 Political rights were gradually won through hard and oftenprotracted struggles in which the workers slowly learned to organise, mobil-ise, and act collectively against statemachineries, first in strikes and then, aftergaining some rights, in elections fought with their own parties.26 Each step ofthe expansion of rights ‘usually occurred in response to the demand of somewell-defined contender or coalition of contenders’.27 ‘Organization gave work-ing people the strength to demand their rights. The acquisition of those rightsbrought expanded use of them in formulating new demands or pursuing oldones. The sequence … is a general rule for collective action’.28

In the emerging latecomer polities, the character of collective actionwas dif-ferent. The state apparatus was usually not ‘internal’ to the same extent, andtherefore major crises did not result from demands made by ethnically dis-tinct subject populations but rather arose from international conflicts and theirimpact on the fragilemother empires. Fluctuation between extreme repressionand temporary liberalisation was much more likely than in the major West-ern states. Opportunities sometimes changed rapidly and quite independentlyof the strength of collective action. It may be argued, for example, that theRusso-JapaneseWar had a much greater impact on the introduction of univer-sal suffrage in Finland in 1906 than did the demands of domestic contendersin preceding years. The collapse of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empiresin World War I and the effect of this on the constituent nationalities were thefinal results of this process.

It seems reasonable tohypothesise that different opportunity structures pro-duced differences in organisation and mobilisation. In Finland the peculiarcharacter of the early working-class movement, which played a decisive partin the abortive revolution of 1917–18, can be traced to the opportunities at thebeginning of the century.

In sum, the state-making histories of the old and the new polities varied sys-tematically, and Finland was undoubtedly one of the latter. Its state apparatuswas dependent on the mother empire; it was economically dependent on theWestern market; ethnic considerations played a prominent part in the state-

25 Moore 1966; Tilly, Tilly and Tilly 1975; Thompson 1963.26 Abendroth 1965, esp. pp. 51–86; Tilly 1978, p. 113.27 Tilly 1978, pp. 170–1.28 Tilly, Tilly and Tilly 1975, p. 280.




making process; and finally, opportunities sometimes changed independentof the strength of domestic collective action. But, quite importantly, Finlandresembled the other new polities in political dependence much more than inthe character of the class structure or the nature of economic dependence.Among the smaller European regions experiencing a serious revolutionarychallenge at the end of World War I, Finland was practically the only one tohave a decidedly non-feudal class structure.29 Finland’s distinctiveness stemsfrom the fact that, in the longer run, it was not just a minority region in a mul-tinational empire; rather, it was a territory between two established membersof the international state system. Before the nineteenth century, the Finnish-language areas that were to form the bulk of present-day Finland belonged toSweden. Finland’s class structure, which was similar to Sweden’s and Norway’s,had its origins in this earlier period. This fact has direct implications for thecharacter of subsequent collective action, but it also implies that economicdependence on the Western market did not have the same consequences asin the East.

The specifically Finnish combination – a decisive similarity with Easternsuccessor states in political dependence on the one hand, and with Scand-inavia in class structure and economic dependence on the other – makes theanalysis of a political, economic, and cultural interface necessary. The Scand-inavian countries cannot be omitted, even if the most important comparisonis with Eastern Europe.

3 What Is to Be Explained

In the nineteenth century, Finlandwas characterised by nearly complete socialtranquillity and a very conservative political system. But the first electionsbased on universal suffrage were held as early as 1907, and they gave the SocialDemocrats the largest share of seats in any European country, even though Fin-land was one of the most agrarian countries in Europe. Almost nine-tenths ofthe votes cast for the Social Democrats came from the countryside. Rural voterswere in the majority in both absolute and relative terms, and the party wasnot only strongly supported but also well organised in the countryside. Dur-

29 Bohemia resembled Finland the most in this respect. Whereas peasant landownershipwas extensive in the Balkans, farms there were fragmented and scarcely viable comparedto those of the Finnish landowning class. See Berend andRánki 1974, pp. 49–52; and below,Chapter 3.



12 chapter 1

ing the following decade this party was gradually integrated into the prevailingpolitical system. Nonetheless, in 1918, immediately after Finland became inde-pendent, it spearheaded an abortive revolution. Finally, a little over a decadelater, a powerful fascist-type movement emerged and attempted to overthrowthe Finnish parliamentary political system.

These are the main processes to be explained in this study: the entrance ofthe masses onto the political scene in 1907, the rise and failure of the revolu-tion of 1918, and the fascist-type reaction of the early 1930s. These phenomenatook place in a region that was or had just ceased to be a politically autonom-ous part of the Russian Empire and had close economic links with the West.To make sense of these processes, a number of questions must be answered.What were the roles of the external and internal forces in the formation of theFinnish state and in the creation of preconditions for collective action in it?How did the outside factors and their intertwining with domestic structuresaffect, first, early political mobilisation and, second, the outbreak of revolutionin 1918? Finally, what was the impact of the failure of the revolution on statestructures and conflicts in the 1920s and 1930s?

These questions may be viewed as problems involving relations betweenthe state and class structures in Finland and the organisation at their intersec-tion – an organisation reflected in the nature of national and class integration.All four processes should be viewed as dependent on external forces. In thisperspective, the first phenomenon that needs to be examined is the consol-idation of the Finnish state, and particularly its relation both to the systemof established states in Europe and to the capitalist world economy. Second,the class structure and the impact of the world market on it are to be con-sidered. Here the third and fourth processes, linked to the role of the variousclasses in the emerging Finnish state, become relevant. In what ways werepolitical developments in the mother country mediated into the Finnish stateand class structures, thus reshaping their mutual relations? What were theroles of domestic and non-domestic forces in Finnish nationalism and earlytwentieth-century politics?Moreover, how did the endogenous and exogenousfactors influence the process of political mobilisation in 1917 and 1918, after thecollapse of Imperial Russia? Finally, the consequences of the abortive revolu-tion for the state and the classes in the newly independent republic will beassessed.

The class relations that were institutionalised in the Finnish state throughspecific forms of national and class integration during the nineteenth centurywill be delineated first. Then the picture will be fleshed out by an examinationof the suddendisruptions in state control that cameabout because of interstaterivalries damaging to Russia. The question is, how did earlier Finnish struc-




tures and forms of integration become effective in the crisis, and what thenhappened to them? Reduced to its barest essentials, then, the theme of thisbook is the interplay between institutionalised domestic class relations andfluctuations in the controlling capacity of the state resulting from oscillationsin the mother empire.

After considering these questions it will be possible to judge the relevanceof other Eastern European cases for Finland, as well as the relevance of theFinnish case for them, in terms of classes, state formation, and problems oforganisation.

4 Plan of the Book

Thebook is divided into four parts, dealing firstwith fundamental state-makingprocesses and class relations (Part I), national integration and class integration(Part II), and the rupture of integration in the abortive revolution (Part III).Then an attempt is made to place Finnish developments in a European per-spective (Part IV).

In Part I the formation of the Finnish state and its linkages with the devel-opment of the class structure are delineated. The process of state-making andthe shifting relations among the upper classes bear themarks of Finland’s pos-ition in the interface between Sweden and Russia. When the Finnish regionswere transferred from Sweden to Russia and made into a separate politicalunit, the relations between the dominant groups were redefined. Then, a half-century later, they were completed andmodified by capitalist development. Inthe consolidation of the economy, Finland benefited greatly from its Scand-inavian social structure and its status as an ‘overdeveloped’ minority region inamultinational empire. From this double point of departure, aWestern type ofsocial structure and an Eastern type of dependence, Finland was able to starta process of economically autonomous development in the latter part of thenineteenth century (Chapter 2).

In this process close ties developed between the agrarian and the industrialproletariat. Finland’s main industrial sector, forestry, was strongly and very dir-ectly linked to the countryside because the peasants owned the bulk of theforests. Consequently, the capitalist transformation was felt immediately andprofoundly in both town and country (Chapter 3).

Another aspect of the process of state-making and, notably, of the formationof a national economy was territorial integration. During the Swedish periodthe Finnish regions interacted mainly with an external core, Stockholm. In thenineteenth century, however, after tentative and partial reorientation toward



14 chapter 1

St. Petersburg, a domestic core emerged. A geographical division of labour wasestablished, which tied the various regions together in a more fundamentalsense than ever before and accentuated a number of regional inequalities(Chapter 4).

Part II lays out the interrelationship between the state and the class struc-tures in the process of organisation.The starting point is Finland’s resemblanceto Scandinavia, on theonehand, in its basic patterns of organisation andmobil-isation, and to other minor nationalities in the large empires, on the other, inits opportunities for collective action.

The national movement was a struggle for self-assertion and liberation, butat the same time it served for the dominant classes as a ‘civic religion’ forthe emerging state, thanks to the early foundation of the Finnish polity bythe Russian imperial authorities. The latter aspect of the national movementwas intensified by the strength of the Finnish-speaking peasantry; because theauthority of the Swedish-speaking upper classes rested structurally on a fragilefoundation, their national responsiveness was enhanced. It is mainly becauseof this combination – so it is argued – that national consolidation occurred inFinland, and nationalism advanced exceptionally calmly and steadily (Chap-ter 5).

Although the emerging party system closely resembled the Scandinavianone, the political opportunity granted by the first Russian revolution in 1905–6 made the main challenger, the worker movement, focus overwhelmingly onpurely political and, more particularly, parliamentary action, at the expenseof strikes and other forms of collective action based directly on productiverelations. Strong agrarian support for the Social Democratic party worked inthe same direction. The movement rapidly attained membership in the polityand became a powerful instrument in both class and national integration(Chapter 6).

The emergence of regionally varying party support is another indicatorof national integration. The persistence of regional conflicts is manifest inthe combinations of party support, which differed from region to region. Butbecause all important parties played a national role, it is reasonable to viewthe regional combinations as the way in which local conflicts were fused onthe emerging national level (Chapter 7).

In Part III the disruption of metropolitan control and its domestic con-sequences during and afterWorldWar I are brought into play. Arguably, it wasthe strong position of the rather reformistworkermovement in the polity, com-bined with the opportunity for collective action provided by the breakdown oftheRussianEmpire, that led Finland into a revolutionary situation.The Finnishcase illustrates the primacy of changes in conditions for contests concerning




state power and suggests that whether or not the challengers consider them-selves revolutionaries at the outset is of secondary importance (Chapters 8 and9).

The failed revolution marked the creation of an independent country outof a grand duchy, and especially out of the national and class integrationconsolidated in the previous phase of state-making. The earlier national cul-ture provided the instruments for defining and analysing the seemingly sur-prising and incomprehensible developments of 1917–18. From this perspect-ive, the Finnish fascist movement of the early 1930s appears to be basicallya general bourgeois reaction, an attempt to reassert the White victory of 1918(Chapter 10).

Finally, Part IV (Chapters 11 and 12) focuses both on features that Finland hadin commonwith other Eastern Europeanminority regions and latecomer polit-ies and on features that differentiated Finland from them. The country’s inter-face position seems crucial: Finland emerges as a kind of mixed case in which,curiously enough, a class structure and political system of aWestern type and asudden collapse of an Eastern type coincided to ignite a revolution. The formerhad granted the Social Democrats a central place in the representative politicalinstitutions of the country; the latter granted them an extremely advantageousopportunity to use this power. The revolutionary situation emerged when thelabour movement attempted tomaintain power and the particular advantagesit had gained in the face of a resolute bourgeois effort to recapture amonopolyon power. This was very unlike the Baltic Provinces, where the revolutionariesreally seized power, or Hungary, where they simply accepted it – in both casesafter war had destroyed the state apparatus.



part 1

State-Making and the Class Structure

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© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004386174_003

chapter 2

Dominant Groups and State-Making

1 The Early Nineteenth Century

Purely external factors determined the creation of Finland as a distinct polit-ical entity. As Edward C. Thaden dryly puts it, ‘Finnish autonomy, and even theexistence of a Finnish nation, can be considered an incidental byproduct ofwars between Sweden and Russia during the eighteenth and at the beginningof the nineteenth centuries’.1

Prior to 1809 themainly Finnish-speaking territories east of theGulf of Both-nia and north of the Gulf of Finland were an integral part of Sweden. As on theother side of the Gulf of Bothnia, the language of the elites was Swedish. Thesea did not separate but rather united the eastern provinces with the hub ofthe state, and these were more oriented to Stockholm than to each other (seeChapter 4). The south-western region of what later became the Finnish statebelonged more or less to the core of the Swedish kingdom, whereas the otherregions remained at the periphery. The concept of Finland existed, but it wasmore a geographical term than a political one. Initially it referred to the south-western region, which had been strongly linked to the core of the state fromthe thirteenth century onward. Only later was it extended to cover the Finnish-speaking peripheries, which in the course of the subsequent centuries cameunder the firm control of the Swedish monarchs.2 At the end of the eighteenthcentury about 15 percent of the total population consisted of Swedish-speakers,most of whom were engaged in farming and fishing on the coastal regions.

Themost striking characteristic of Swedish society, in the Finnish regions aswell as in the territorymakingup thepresent-day Swedish state,was a freepeas-antry, which constituted the backbone of the social structure. Thanks to classbalance in the rural economy, the relations of production were never reallyfeudalised. Moreover, during the eighteenth century the position of the land-holding peasants was reinforced markedly. In the double process of increasesin peasant property and of enclosures, a foundationwas laid for the emergenceof a strong market-oriented cultivator class as well as for the internal differen-tiation of the agricultural population.

1 Thaden 1984, p. 82.2 Klinge 1982, pp. 23–49; Carlsson 1980.

This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Risto Alapuro - 978-90-04-38617-4Downloaded from Brill.com02/25/2020 03:00:57PM


20 chapter 2

The freeholders’ proprietorship was strengthened, and tenants on crownland were allowed to buy their holdings. Peasants also acquired the right topurchase noble lands. At the same time, common lands were redistributed tothe landholders, and the repartition of mixed strips and fields into larger shareswas started.3

The extensiveness of peasant property in the Swedish kingdom strongly sug-gests that the dominance of the nobility was based less on landownership thanon its central position in the bureaucracy – particularly when Sweden is com-pared to Eastern and Central Europe. By contemporary standards, Sweden wasadministered effectively, and the surplus frompeasant producerswas extractedindirectly, rather than directly by a land-controlling nobility.4 Even in south-western Finland, that is, in the Finnish-speaking region where manorial rela-tionships were by far themost widespread, nobles and other gentlemen ownedonly one-fifth of the complete farms (in Swedish, mantal) at the beginning ofthe nineteenth century.5

The comparatively strong position of the peasantry was reflected in thepolitical system.The four-chamber SwedishDietwasunique inEurope in that itincluded a separate Peasant Estate alongside the hereditary nobility, the occu-pational clergy, and the burghers – although the Peasant Estate did remaininferior to the other three chambers.

In 1809 eight eastern counties were separated from Sweden and incorpor-ated into the Russian Empire. Although this area was populated mainly byFinnish-speakers, the new border was drawn not on linguistic lines but on stra-tegic ones. In 1807 at Tilsit, the Russian tsar Alexander I had agreed on zonesof influence with Napoleon. As a consequence Russia conquered Finland, aterritory important for the defence of St. Petersburg, in 1808–9.6 One centuryearlier Peter the Great had won Estland, Livland, and the regions surrounding

3 Østerud 1978a, pp. 130–6. One indication of the deep roots of peasant freeholding in Swedenis that the enclosures furthered independent family farming, rather than leading to a reduc-tion in peasant land, as was the case in England. The Swedish enclosures were initiated bythe state and were not linked to the agricultural revolution but preceded it (ibid., pp. 144–9).

4 Mäkelä and Viikari 1977, pp. 166–7.5 Landownership by the nobles and other gentlemen is measured by combining two percent-

ages for the years 1805–7: the proportion of mantal cultivated by tenant farmers in FinlandProper, Satakunta, Häme, and Uusimaa (Jutikkala 1939, 39), and the proportion held byman-orial demesnes in the same regions (Jutikkala 1932, pp. 74–82). The percentages – which arenot fully comparable – are 16.4 and 3.4, respectively.

6 Tommila 1984, pp. 7–12, 54; Klinge 1980a, pp. 38–9.



dominant groups and state-making 21

map 1 Finland, the Baltic Provinces of Russia, and Scandinavia in the nineteenth cen-tury (including the border between Sweden and Russia in 1721 and 1743)

the bottomof theGulf of Finland fromSweden and established his new capital,St. Petersburg, in the newly acquired territories (seeMap 1). From that time on,the protection of the new capital was of primary importance for Russia. Duringthe eighteenth century, moreover, Sweden gradually lost her position as a greatpower. The conquest of Finland by Russia was the final phase in the shift inthe balance of power between these two establishedmembers of the Europeanstate system.



22 chapter 2

Swedish sovereignty in the eastern counties ended in September 1809 withthe Treaty of Hamina (in Swedish, Fredrikshamn), and the conquest was con-firmed at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The laws and privileges enjoyedhitherto by the people of the conquered territory were to remain unchangedunder Russian rule. This was not exceptional: earlier Peter the Great had co-opted the established institutional structure in annexed regions. The pacifica-tionmeasures implemented in Finland in 1809were similar to those adopted inthe Baltic Provinces in 1710. The highest local authority was a Russian governorgeneral. The local administration continued to operate as before, but underthe surveillance of the governor general’s office.7 In the Finnish case, althoughthere was no prior administrative authority covering the entire region, com-mon administrative practices had evolved during the centuries of Swedish rule.These were strictly observed in the new political environment. As early asMarch 1809 the tsar met with the assembled Finnish estates in the cathedralcity of Porvoo (Borgå) and declared his intention to make Finland an imperialgrand duchy, a separate entity in governmental, financial, and religious affairs.

Alexander’s interest in experiments with political and social reform had aninfluence on the rights granted to the Finns. He believed that Russia hadmuchto learn from the institutional systems then prevailing in Russia’s western bor-derlands. But foreign-policy considerations were still more important. Becauseof warswith Sweden,Turkey, and France and, in a broader perspective, becauseof Sweden’s continuing military power, which allowed it to challenge his con-trol of Finland, it seemed imperative to tie the new region to the central gov-ernment by transferring the loyalties of the local elite to the new sovereign.This had occurred in the Baltic Provinces, and it was the goal in Finland.8 ‘Theimperial policy of autonomy rested on the assumption that political loyalty andorthodoxy in the northwestern border zone could be best guaranteed throughthe employment of local elites and local traditions’.9

The goal was pursued by maintaining and even extending privileges, bybuilding a central administration, and by creating a Finnish counterpart ofthe Swedish four-curia Diet. Among the institutions that were to remain un-changedwere the fundamental laws, the Lutheran religion, and corporate priv-ileges. Furthermore, the Finns were not subject to conscription, but they didbecome eligible for civil and military office in the empire (whereas Russianswere not eligible for Finnish posts). The grand duchy had a separate budgetand retained its own revenues. The local university in Turku (Åbo), which was

7 Jussila 1981, p. 32; Schweitzer 1984, pp. 202, 203.8 Thaden 1981b, pp. 15–17; Thaden 1984, pp. 3, 60–1, 231–2.9 Selleck 1961, p. 52.




later moved to Helsinki (Helsingfors), was given considerable privileges. Fin-land formed a separate customs area in the Russian foreign trade system. Ineconomic affairs, only tariffs, trade relations with foreign countries, and somefeatures of monetary policy were initially placed under Russian jurisdiction.The traditional administrative units – the counties and the communes – wereretained, but they were integrated into a uniform domestic administration. Asa further sign of favour, the south-western areas of Karelia around the city ofViipuri (Viborg), annexed by Russia in 1721 and 1743 (see Map 1), were unitedwith the grand duchy in 1812.

From 1816 the highest domestic authority was the Senate. Its EconomicDepartment served as the supreme administrative council, and its JudicialDepartment as the supreme court. Thememberswere recruited primarily fromthe professional civil and judicial service. The Senate was chaired by the gov-ernor general, who was the highest official in Finland and commander-in-chief of the Russian troops stationed in the country. In St. Petersburg, Finnishmatters were prepared and presented by the Committee for Finnish Affairs(between 1826 and 1857, the State Secretariat for FinnishAffairs), headed at firstby a state secretary, and from 1834 on by a minister state secretary who figuredamong theministers of the empire. Significantly, Finnish affairswere presenteddirectly to the emperor, and the country was not subordinated to the central,ministerial government of Russia.10

The meaning of Finland’s new position was far from self-evident at theoutset. Its true importance and also a number of its institutional forms wereestablished, especially in the first decades of the grand duchy, only throughcontinued and determined efforts by Finnish leaders, for whom the consol-idation of Finland’s separate status remained a constant preoccupation.11 Thebasis that made this work possible was laid in 1809 and the next few years, dur-ing which time Finland acquired for the first time a politically distinct status.Militarily its positionwasmore secure than under Swedish rule, and personallymembers of the upper echelons of the administration had access to newofficesunder improved conditions.12 Among all Russia’s nineteenth-century border-lands, only Congress Poland enjoyed greater autonomy, and that was only untilthe insurrection of 1830–1.

The various initial measures rapidly produced the desired results. Nearly allimportant institutional and Swedish-speaking elites made public declarationsof loyalty and gratitude, and organisation and recruitment for the new central

10 Jussila 1985, pp. 63, 66.11 Schweitzer 1984, pp. 201–9; Jussila 1984, pp. 97–8.12 Selleck 1961, pp. 35–7; Tommila 1984, pp. 51, 58–65, 75–6, 105, 113–31.



24 chapter 2

administration proceeded apace. For leaders of the Finnish nobility, trained inthe Swedish royal service, it was relatively easy to transfer to the tsar personalloyalty developed in an earlier era.13 Such shifts of allegiance were quite com-monduring this period, particularly among the nobility. As E.J. Hobsbawmputsit, ‘Before the “national” era … various “national” solidarities had only a cas-ual connection, and were not supposed to have any special connection, withobligations to the state centre’.14 In 1850, over one-fifth of the adult Finnishmale nobility was in the Russian military service. During the entire period ofRussian rule, the Imperial Army attracted about 3,300 Finns, mostly from thearistocracy.15

From the Russian point of view, the process was facilitated by the consti-tutional system introduced by the Swedish king, Gustav III, in 1772 and 1789.The Gustavian constitution presumed the existence of a strong royal execut-ive governing by decree through an administrative hierarchy over which theDiet had very little control. This feature made it easier for the emperor to pre-serve the fundamental legislation. Moreover, Finland’s autonomy was basedultimately on his generosity, not on formal recognition of fundamental laws.Finland never obtained from Alexander I or from his successors formal regula-tion of its relationship with Russia. The Finnish bureaucratic leaders were wellaware that in the autocratic Russian Empire the constitution ultimately restedon a tenuous political balance and that the limitations of monarchy were self-imposed, or rather imposed by considerations of broader policy, over whichFinns had no effective control.16

In a sense the Gustavian system facilitated cultural separation from Sweden.As a consequence of the war, Sweden’s political system and cultural atmo-sphere changed greatly, and the former mother country became increasinglyalien to the Finnish elites.17

The fact that the convening of the Diet depended on the monarch wasextremely important for the domestic exercise of power. After 1809, the Dietwas not summoned until 1863. Subsequently, however, it met at regular inter-vals.Without a parliament to serve as a public forum for political competition,the bureaucratically organised administration, with the Senate at its top, wasneeded to carry out important political tasks. And because the tsar remained

13 Korhonen 1963, pp. 190–214; Tommila 1984, pp. 83, 102; Selleck 1961, pp. 40, 42.14 Hobsbawm 1972, p. 389.15 Screen 1976, pp. 287–9; Kirby 1979, pp. 6–7.16 Thaden 1984, 85, 230.Twobasic studies areKorhonen 1963 and Jussila 1969; see also Selleck

1961, 41, 46–47, 53.17 Klinge 1980b, pp. 13–14.




passive in local affairs, the actual exercise of political leadership devolved inlargemeasureon thebureaucracy,withnoclear divisionof political andadmin-istrative functions in the central government. Early nineteenth-century Fin-land was, in its upper echelons, a thoroughly bureaucratic society.18

In sum, then, when Russia created the Finnish polity, the position of thedomestic bureaucracy was greatly strengthened. A central administration wasbuilt up, but its rolewas not limited to administrative affairs. By suspending theDiet for nearly half a century, the Russians indirectly endowed the top of theadministration with vital political functions.

These arrangements were to change status and power relations among thedominant groups and to create new tensions. Paradoxically, the strengtheningof the bureaucracy, which was the stronghold of the nobility, undermined thenobility’s traditional position as the first and most powerful estate. Nobilitywas becoming more a reward than a prerequisite for bureaucratic success.19The erosion was symptomatic of a more general change affecting the dom-inant groups. In the bureaucratic society of the early nineteenth century, thefour estates ceased to reflect adequately social differentiation. The basic socialdividing line came to separate the ‘gentry’ from the masses. The bureaucracyconstituted the core of the gentry (in Swedish, ståndspersoner; in Finnish,säätyläiset). In Swedish usage, the concept of the gentry initially referred tothe nobility, the clergy, and their social equals. Later the term other gentrywasused to refer to commoners who had entered the military and bureaucraticranks and to any teachers or professionals who did not fall into the tradi-tional ‘learned estate’ of the clergy. The gentry revolved around the civil service,which had an internal hierarchy and an official system of ranks. Ultimately theconcept came to refer to a social identity recognised more by custom than bylaw. The gentry pattern included exposure to higher education, employment inthe higher levels of the administration, personal association with other mem-bers of the gentry, an appropriate standard of living, and use of the Swedishlanguage, which dominated all public services, higher education, and publiclife. In other words, the gentry was a status group in theWeberian sense.20

The existence of this status group is an indication of the stability that pre-vailed in the bureaucratic society of the time. Business and industrial activitywere also under firm administrative control. The domestic government wasthe main source of commercial funds for business, and only the state could

18 Selleck 1961, pp. 25–6, 53–4; Wirilander 1974, pp. 105–6, 116, 120.19 Jutikkala 1956, p. 124; Selleck 1961, pp. 25–26.20 Selleck 1961, pp. 21–5; Wirilander 1974, pp. 33–6, 105–41, 153–9, 179–82, 409; Weber 1968,

pp. 305–7, 935–8.



26 chapter 2

table 1 Percentage distribution of Finnish population byindustry, 1820–1920

Sector 1820 1870 1920

Agriculture and forestry 88% 83% 71%Industry 4 6 15Trade and communications 4 5 11Unknown 4 6 3

Total 100% 100% 100%N (thousands) 1,178 1,766 3,105

Source: P. Manninen 1976, 81

create an adequate infrastructure. The character of the social structure helpedto preserve social tranquillity. Nearly nine-tenths of the population worked inagriculture (see Table 1), and the agrarian population was made up mainly oflandowning peasants and crofters (see Table 4, p. 43). Only the former had arecognised position in the political system, but in many cases the economicpositions of the two groups were very much alike. The agrarian proletariat, incontrast, found itself under strict control owing to thehiring-out obligation andother regulations.21

Consequently, during this period the only visible social tension resultednot from challenges by subordinated groups but from the increased powerand authority of the bureaucracy. This is a central point in Roberta Selleck’sstudy of the Finnish political discussion during the half-century preceding thereconvening of the Diet in 1863.22 Besides the civil hierarchy, the other mainelite section in the gentry consisted of the clerical and academic groups. Withthe strengthening of the bureaucracy, their institutional position was slowlyeroded, leading ultimately to dissatisfaction with and opposition to the civilhierarchy.

The Lutheran church and the national university were vested with powersof internal self-government and performed important political functions. Thechurch, through its parish congregations, was responsible for local governmentin rural areas, as well as for public education – not only the basic instruction inliteracy required of all Lutheran communicants, but also the secondary system

21 Myllyntaus 1981, p. 178.22 Selleck 1961.




leadingup to theuniversity.Therewas a close linkbetween the two institutions:both scholars and practising clerics made up the church elite.23

Recruitment patterns for the clergy and academic groups were similar anddiffered from those for the civil hierarchy. Just as there were family dynastieswithin the bureaucracy, so too was there much clerical-academic self- andinter-recruitment. Another peculiarity was the continuing entry into thesegroups by people from outside the gentry as a whole. The small flow of the sonsof the independent peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie into (lower) churchand university posts represented the only regular form of social mobility intothe gentry during this period.24

The creation of a local bureaucratic hierarchy following the events of 1808–9reduced the relative social status of the clerical and scholarly elites. The tradi-tional academic emphasis on a broad classical education conflicted with thebureaucratic view that the university should provide vocational training forpublic service.25 More important, because the church and university shapedpublic attitudes, not least of all through the educational system, bureaucraticleaders had to make use of the Second Estate in their efforts to maintainthe precarious balance of imperial policy. These bureaucratic leaders thuseagerly claimed the right to exercise authoritative control based on their capa-city to defend autonomy through a combination of rigid legalism, diplomacy,and strategic compromise. ‘While it was generally sufficient to secure passiveobedience from other social groups, the clerical and teaching personnel wererequired to play an active part in the execution of government policy by assist-ing in the control of public opinion’.26 This was particularly important, at thistime when public discussion was limited by official controls and the Diet didnot convene, because theuniversity provided virtually theonly forumof debateoutside the upper levels of the bureaucracy itself.

23 The institutional connectionswere gradually severed after 1809, but church anduniversitymen, sharing a similar educational background and a similar professional interest in theeducational process, maintained close contacts even after formal separation (Selleck 1961,pp. 27–9; cf. Wirilander 1974, pp. 256–8, 329–35).

24 Waris 1940, pp. 216, 221–7; Selleck 1961, pp. 25, 29–31. Cf.Wirilander 1974, pp. 201–34, 351–5.25 As training for the civil service became more important, the university curriculum could

not be left in the hands of clergymen and scholars to the extent it had been before. Civilservice training had been assigned to the university in the previous century, but a decisivemove toward the dominance of bureaucratic considerations occurred after 1810 (Selleck1961, pp. 74–7; cf. Tommila 1984, p. 132; and Wirilander 1974, pp. 234, 313, 336, 338, 344–5,350, 360–3, 366).

26 Selleck 1961, p. 67.



28 chapter 2

For the members of the Second Estate, and especially for their leaders inthe academic community, these processes implied a loss of freedom of action.Against various threats to their existence as an autonomous social corporation,politically conscious members of the academic community slowly began toassert alternative claims to status and authority:

As institutional criticism of a liberal nature was prevented by censorship,these claimswere expressed primarily in terms of cultural values. Generaleducation was opposed to routine administrative skill, and the capacityto contact the depths of the nationwas described asmore important thanthe ability to negotiate a defense of legal autonomy.27

To conclude, the creation of a separate Finnish polity did not evoke opensocial conflicts in the early nineteenth century. It did not change the relationsbetween the rulers and the population, as had happened in the early Europeanstates; the earlier system of domination was preserved. But the change was sig-nificant for the Finnish elites. For the first time they were tied to each otherthrough a domestic administration. The process of state-making, which wasshaped above all by the country’s dependent position, changed the relationsbetween the elites and generated tension among them. As Selleck points out,28the very structure of Finland’s autonomy tended to deflect frustrations arisingout of Finno-Russian relations toward domestic targets, hastening the devel-opment of opposition within the ranks of the gentry – opposition not to theempire as such but rather to the local, governing elite of the grand duchy. Thisinstitutional tension played a part in the rise of the national movement fromthe 1840s on (see Chapter 5), and it was amplified and altered in the late nine-teenth century as a consequence of the capitalist transformation.

2 Economic Integration

The early European national states grew up along with capitalism. In thesecountries, state-making and the development of capitalism were so closelyintertwined that it is hard to distinguish their effects. In the Finnish case therelationship is much less problematic. Because the Finnish polity was createdby external decision, economic consolidation could occur only after Finlandhad evolved politically. In the earliest phase of economic integration, then,

27 Ibid., p. 87.28 Ibid., p. 34.




the state played the principal role, and it remained central when the capitalisttransformation gave further momentum to the process.

Before the 1840s, the efforts of the state were directed more to maintainingthe status quo than to creating an integrated economic unit. Industrial devel-opment was restrained by mercantilist restrictions, and the surplus extractedfrom the peasants provided the fiscal basis for nearly all the operations ofthe state. The largest public expenditure item was administration.29 Underthis passive policy a national market emerged rather slowly. There were agri-cultural regions of both over- and underproduction, but only weak commer-cial links existed between them. Similarly, the national market for industrialproducts was very modest. ‘At present Finnish merchants have more extens-ive and more active relations with foreign countries than with each other’, ageography manual stated in 1827.30 Characteristically, the separation of theFinnish counties from Sweden did not lead to a sudden change in commercialrelations with the former mother country. Sales to Stockholm of Finnish peas-ant produce remained important after 1809 in the western regions, and Fin-land’s most important industrial activity, iron fabrication, was almost entirelydependent on Swedish ore until the 1860s. Until the 1840s commerce withSweden resembled domestic trade more than foreign trade. Swedish currencywas accepted along with the Russian silver and paper ruble andwas evenmorewidely used than the latter currency.31 In the east, commercial ties with St.Petersburg were revitalised (see Chapter 4).

Only in the 1840s and 1850s did the state begin to actively support eco-nomic consolidation and growth. State revenues were increased in order topromote industry and the construction of the infrastructure, which in turnwas supposed to stimulate trade in agricultural products. A monetary reformwas carried out, the position of the Bank of Finland (founded in 1811) was rein-forced, the tariff and land tax systems were reorganised, financing of industrywas facilitated, vocational schools were founded, and the construction of roadsand canals gained momentum. In the early 1840s the country was economic-ally separated from Sweden as earlier tariff privileges were abolished and theSwedish currency was replaced by a domestic one.32

29 ‘Administration’ included, above all, the maintenance of (former) officers in the army,abolished when the grand duchy was founded, as well as the maintenance of a small per-manent detachment (Myllyntaus 1980, pp. 362–3).

30 Quoted in Mauranen 1980, p. 448.31 Myllyntaus 1980, pp. 340, 347–8; Schybergson 1980a, pp. 412, 420–1; Schybergson 1980b,

p. 451.32 Myllyntaus 1980, pp. 338, 342, 353, 355, 358, 365; Schybergson 1980a, p. 432; Schybergson

1980b, p. 457; Mauranen 1980, p. 449.



30 chapter 2

The final steps in the repeal of mercantilist restrictions and in the con-struction of a national economy were taken between the late 1850s and thelate 1870s. The process was accelerated by the crisis of the autocracy follow-ing the Crimean War and by the added strength of the domestic bourgeoisieand other interest groups. By revealing both the economic and military back-wardness of the Russian autocracy, the war made internal reforms urgent anddirected governmental attention to the loyalty of national minorities. To thisend Alexander II, in 1856, initiated a liberal policy of reform in socially tran-quil Finland. Gradually, however, this policy led to a crisis, because the estab-lished practices of consultation and administrative decree could no longerbe employed without consultation with the four Finnish estates. IncreasingFinnish demands finally brought the tsar to agree to the resumption and regu-larisation of Parliament from 1863 on – in the middle of the Polish crisis – andthe basic economic legislation was revised.33 By the end of the 1870s a separ-ate Finnish currency had been introduced, all industries and trades freed fromrestrictions, the craft system and limitations on the free movement of labourabolished, active railway construction initiated, and the local administrationmodernised.

Of decisive importance, however, were the closing decades of the last cen-tury. Gross domestic product increased fivefold between 1860 and 1913, with the1890s the period of most rapid growth. The growth ratewas one of the fastest inEurope. At the same time, the share of industry and construction in the grossdomestic product (GDP) increased from 13 to 25 percent, and the share of theprimary sector fell from 65 to 47 percent. Self-financing played an importantrole in the growth of GDP.34 Agriculture was linked to the rapidly expandingmarket, the main indication being the changeover from traditional arable cul-tivation to the much more commercial occupation of stock-raising. The landtax was replaced by various indirect taxes, mainly tariffs, as the main source ofstate revenue. In state expenditure, the construction of the infrastructure andthe provision of social services, notably investments in railways and in educa-tion, came to predominate along with the administrative expenditures.35

In this way the main obstacles to capitalist transformation were removed –that is, the state itself began to acquire capitalist features. It no longer merelycollected and distributed the surplus produce of the peasantry, as in the earlynineteenth century. It now began to develop functions involved in the repro-

33 Suni 1979, pp. 59–63, 100–4; Seileck 1961, pp. 178–9.34 Hjerppe and Pihkala 1977, p. 60; Hjerppe, Peltonen, and Pihkala 1984, p. 44; A. Kuusterä

1985, pp. 144–5.35 Pihkala 1977.




duction of the capitalist mode of production.36 The state had proceeded fromcontrolling economic activity to promoting the process of accumulation bothby establishing the legal and institutional framework conducive to growth andby carrying out economic activity. Thus a political unit that had been createdby an external decision gradually became economically integrated.

This transformation was greatly accelerated by Finland’s links to the inter-national economic system.37 Actually, as IvánT. Berend andGyörgy Ránki havepointed out – and as the importance of tariffs in state revenue makes clearin the Finnish case – it is just at the intersection of domestic and interna-tional forces that the state played its part in the capitalist transformation of theEuropean peripheries and prepared the periphery in question to face the chal-lenge of the industrialisedWest.38 By the middle of the century, the industrialrevolution inWestern Europe had created a capitalist market of a type that hadnever existed before, with a pulling power that attractedwhatever food and rawmaterial the world could produce and that could transform backward agrarianregionswithin a fewdecades.39 Finlandwas one of these regions, andwoodwasthe resource exploited. Finland’s resource endowment determined its role inthe international division of labour, andwoodprocessing became the country’sleading industry. Between 1900 and 1909, wood industry products (essentiallylumber) accounted for 44 percent of the total value of exports, or asmuch as 69percent including forestry and the more advanced paper industry. At the sametime, Finnish exports had one of the fastest growth rates among the peripheralcountries of Europe, and the value of export

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